I don't know who needs to hear this, but if someone hears that you have limited space and need to grow in containers but you want to grow tomatoes and they they tell you, "Just grow cherry tomatoes!", never take gardening advice from that person again.

What you need to determine, based on how large your containers are and how much vertical growing space you have and how well you can support the plants and how much time you have, is what kind of *growing habit* you need in a variety.

This is a complicated topic that's probably not great for twitter, but there are a number of fine books and websites out there that can help you figure out what works for you.

Tomatoes are bred in sizes from microdwarf (max out at 18") to dwarf (2-3 feet on the low end, 4-6' on the high end) to a whole range of sizes when it comes to regular indeterminate (produces fruit constantly all season long) tomatoes.

But unless your tomato is determinate (sets fruit all at once and usually early and then you just get a small trickle after that) or dwarf, plan for at least 6 foot plants and know that they could get to twice that. Longer if you plant to prune to 1 or 2 main stems.

Some tomatoes have what's called a "bush" habit, with one or two strong central stems and not that much else in terms of branching. Most (but not all) the plants that grow this way are determinate so also stay short.

This is what you might be able to contain in the tomato cages you see at gardening centers. "Regular" tomato plants will laugh at those cages as they utterly escape and engulf them leaving you in despair. I use those cages for my dwarf tomatoes, peppers, and smaller eggplants.

You see, the "regular" tomato growth habit is to become increasingly huge and unwieldy over a season as it grows both enthusiastically up and branches promiscuously out.

If you don't plan to prune to 1 or 2 stems (whether or not to do this is the third rail of tomato growing and depends on your goals, conditions, and needs), you'll need a very sturdy trellis or a very tall cage.

And even if you do prune... well, let's just say that tomato growing forums are full of entire subfora on how best to support tomato plants.

And to bring this thread around, non-dwarf, i.e. "regular" indeterminate cherry tomato plants are often the MOST UNRULY, HUGEST plants.

So don't look at fruit size. Research how the plant grows.

Cherries are, however, a good option if you don't have full sun all day. You'll get fewer fruits, but you'll get fruits, and they'll taste decent. A larger-fruited tomato can be way too stingy and lackluster in flavor in part shade to be worth the trouble.

Plants in part shade will be lankier, though, so plan for even more length.

If you want recs for smaller tomato plants to grow, I'm happy to give some, if such a thing would interest you tweeps.